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Were you a gifted child?

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Abstract_Logic
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05 Feb 2021, 10:25 am

WildColonial wrote:
Here’s an interesting article about how being labeled as gifted can affect your life as an adult:

https://www.bustle.com/p/how-being-a-gi ... dult-32168

My NT brother and I were both labeled gifted, but he’s been able to translate it into his adult life more easily than I have. He’s had issues with depression and anxiety, but he mostly doesn’t have the emotional issues that I do. He’s been out of work a couple times but bounces back more easily from career setbacks than I do. Both of us have multiple passions and skills; his are music, theatre, and cars, while mine are writing, art, and animals. We both share an interest in cooking and are skilled at it. He’s a fantastic dad, and the prospect of full-time parenting scares me.

I’m interested to learn what your experiences have been.


I guess it depends on what is meant by "gifted". In the sense used in that Bustle article (which seems to be the sense that people usually use when saying "gifted"), then no, I was not academically or intellectually gifted. I didn't stand out in that way to my elementary school teachers so they never deemed it necessary to have me tested for giftedness.

I had special interests/obsessions as a child that were unusual for my age. I was more obsessed with dinosaurs at age 5 than my peers and had an age-appropriate encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs. My grandparents can recall me telling them I wanted to be a paleontologist (I don't remember saying that specifically, but it's possible I found out what a paleontologist is from my kindergarten teacher when we did the lesson plan for dinosaurs). In first and second grade I was obsessed with outer space and the solar system. My favorite store in the mall was the Rand McNalley store, and I had this booklet from there about the solar system that I was obsessed with. I became attached to this book in particular because it had information in it along with illustrations of the planets and solar system. Each chapter was devoted to a particular solar system object. I read this book so much that I gained an encyclopedic knowledge of its contents and was able to verbalize the information. But this booklet wasn't advanced for my age or anything, it was written for a child audience. So, given the above, the most I can say is that I was more intellectually curious as a child than my age-peers; my IQ (for any definition of IQ) was in the normal range, and pretty likely still is.


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05 Feb 2021, 6:18 pm

Irulan wrote:
Yes, I could read almost as fluently as now at only 2,5 and as a first grader (7-8 y/o) I read books for adults and could win very spelling bee without any problem because I had the condition known now to me as hyperlexia. I used to get the best marks at school. Everybody thought I was so different than the other kids because I was smart and mature for my age. Even when I was a young child, even before I turned five, I had an adult-like way of thinking, analyzing data reaching my brain and perceiving the reality surrounding me. I remember one such a moment - at three I wanted to put my fingers into an electric socket 8O but what at the same moment prevented me from doing this was that instant thought I was going to die if I did this and when you die, it's already FOREVER 8O An average toddler wouldn't rather think of this, she wouldn't have this awareness of irreversibility of death at such a young age, nevertheless I did. :)

You sound highly intuitive and spiritually aware, not to be confused with religious.



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05 Feb 2021, 6:22 pm

rowan_nichol wrote:
No, Autistic, but in the 1970s on a part of the spectrum which was not known.

While tidying and clearing my mother's house I found correspondence with an organisation called the National Gifted Children's Association dated at the time the mismatch between my profile and the school I attended caused my mother a great deal of worry.

I suspect if someone had suggested to my mother that her first child was Autistic the reaction might have been less than pleasant.

I will express gratitude for the memory and learning ability which came witb the profile. It meant I had a secondary school experience with enough people with similar profiles that I avoided the horrible bullying that could have come my way in a totally mixed ability school.

I don't like the label. Insome eyes it looks like pushy parents of children who already have an advantage demanding extra privileges over children who had greater need because they struggled with the accademic stuff.

How did you manage to avoid the bullying?



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05 Feb 2021, 6:26 pm

Aspie1 wrote:
According to the NT definition, yes, I was "gifted". My family learned this when I was in kindergarten, when I read at a 3rd-grade level. (I first learned to read when I was 4.) The gift became a curse. :evil: Immediately, I ceased to exist as a person, and started existing solely as a disembodied report card. To start, my parents enrolled me in a private school with an accelerated curriculum, where I read excerpts from "Les Miserables" and did simple algebra in 3rd grade! 8O Then in 6th thru 8th grade, I was in a regular public school but in a gifted program. Perfect grades were expected at all times! Anything less was harshly punished. Even a B got the side-eye, and a C resulted hours of yelling and a loss of TV privileges for 2 weeks. I also had violent fantasies about my teachers, who I blamed for my strained relationship with my parents.

Every time a report card was due, which contained a C or two on occasion, I was making suicide plans, to avoid my parents' anger. I had my first suicide plan when I was 8. By the time I was 12, my plans became elaborate and "multi-pronged"; that is, used multiple methods to minimize the chance of failure. In the end, I graduated high school with a 3.89 GPA, but felt no sense of pride for it whatsoever. Because it came at a very high emotional price, and nearly cost me my life. I used my high school yearbook as a bathroom reader, until I dropped it in a full bathtub one day.

College was OK. But my jobs early in my career were extremely stressful, to the point of me ending up in a hospital. Today, I work in a fairly low-stress, IT job that's far from glamorous, nobody at my work outside my department even knows who I am, I drink almost every day, and my health is far from perfect. So much for "gifted"! :roll:

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

You are not alone.
Maybe one or both of your parents narcissistic. that is to say your successes are their successes.
other narcissistic parents are jealous of their gifted children and cannot bear to see success this was the case with me.



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05 Feb 2021, 6:35 pm

diagnosedafter50 wrote:
Aspie1 wrote:
According to the NT definition, yes, I was "gifted". My family learned this when I was in kindergarten, when I read at a 3rd-grade level. (I first learned to read when I was 4.) The gift became a curse. :evil: Immediately, I ceased to exist as a person, and started existing solely as a disembodied report card. To start, my parents enrolled me in a private school with an accelerated curriculum, where I read excerpts from "Les Miserables" and did simple algebra in 3rd grade! 8O Then in 6th thru 8th grade, I was in a regular public school but in a gifted program. Perfect grades were expected at all times! Anything less was harshly punished. Even a B got the side-eye, and a C resulted hours of yelling and a loss of TV privileges for 2 weeks. I also had violent fantasies about my teachers, who I blamed for my strained relationship with my parents.

Every time a report card was due, which contained a C or two on occasion, I was making suicide plans, to avoid my parents' anger. I had my first suicide plan when I was 8. By the time I was 12, my plans became elaborate and "multi-pronged"; that is, used multiple methods to minimize the chance of failure. In the end, I graduated high school with a 3.89 GPA, but felt no sense of pride for it whatsoever. Because it came at a very high emotional price, and nearly cost me my life. I used my high school yearbook as a bathroom reader, until I dropped it in a full bathtub one day.

College was OK. But my jobs early in my career were extremely stressful, to the point of me ending up in a hospital. Today, I work in a fairly low-stress, IT job that's far from glamorous, nobody at my work outside my department even knows who I am, I drink almost every day, and my health is far from perfect. So much for "gifted"! :roll:

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

You are not alone.
Maybe one or both of your parents narcissistic. that is to say your successes are their successes.
other narcissistic parents are jealous of their gifted children and cannot bear to see success this was the case with me.

I had a lot of regrets years later as an adult. Childhood is something you have only once, and the time in school. Let every child have a long and happy time growing up, they will have the rest of their lives to be serious.

Missed opportunities we will never have again.


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05 Feb 2021, 7:13 pm

Yes. It has followed me like a double-edged sword, cutting both ways my whole life. I did the Montessori bit, like some of you, because of my mother. She was a proud woman. She was identical in her mental dilemma to Elizabeth Waltraub Carto. Parents died when she was young, and she made excuses for their sick mentalities because she was their little princess. She received a small fortune in children's books from my grandmother, who had saved every single one the family had ever acquired from the 1940's on. My mom also thought she'd look really fancy with complete sets, plural, of encyclopedias. She found them used at garage sales. Eventually, she had 3 sets, of which one was missing 3 books.

I sat in the basement, after her hopes to show them off became apparently unwanted. No one cared enough to discuss them, notice them, or open them. So, I had read all of them at least once by 3rd grade. I had read all of the children's books my grandma gave me. My 4th grade year, I calculated having read something like 200 books. Children's books, but nonetheless many.

When I was 7, I first told my parents the future. That same year, my dad had a car engine torn down in the garage on several carpets and rugs to be cleaned and rebuilt with his buddies. He was astonished when, while looking at the pieces, I guessed how internal combustion engines worked. I would go on to be in EL, Enhanced Learning gifted classes at school. I did mathlympics, studied the Bible at The Jesus Camp, and fixed neighborhood kids' toys for them. One of the most legendary things I did was help a few kids beat Battletoads when we hadn't even turned 10. (Anyone who knows Battletoads knows what an insane feat that is.)

I went on to high school and got good grades at a college-prep school. There were only AP classes, nothing else for gifted individuals. I could have graduated a year early, but got blocked by the guidance counselor who thought I was ret*d because I had autism. I graduated with honors, meeting every criteria to get the diploma besides a higher than 3.8 GPA. My dad pushed me to be an all-star athlete, straight A student, and to volunteer in the community. I worked with my church and local homeless shelters. I had applied to 17 colleges, received offers of scholarships from 14, with a full ride pending from Oberlin if I gave them confirmation of attendance. The last 3 were a flat acceptance from CWRU, and two rejections from Stanford and U of Michigan. I found out my dad had rewritten my entrance papers, which contained numerous errors and perpetuated his pride and hubris. I received a personalized rejection letter from U of M telling me to go f**k myself, paraphrasing.

I learned later that after 5 attempts at college, I had developed Borderline Personality Disorder from the insanity, invalidation, and neglect my parents showered on me and my sister (we both were diagnosed). I didn't settle for it, and because of all the challenges I had met, I embraced my situation and went to war with myself. I spent years correcting my life from the broken mess it became in my 20's. I beat BPD, and remain one of the only people in history to do so. I still had a few symptoms, despite my life becoming stable. And in 2018, as I was on reddit forums helping support others with BPD, I came across an article that people were being misdiagnosed as BPD when they were only autistic. I took a test from this site, and realized that I am ND.

Now, I sit in a strange and lonely place. I joined Mensa and ran laps around the people in that organization. I scored a 105 on their entrance exam. So, I know on a slow Tuesday when I was hungover that I could still run the game on a standardized test. I later scored a 97 on my ASVAB when I tried to get into the military. But they refused me entry after escorting me all the way to the final processes because I refused to lie on the entrance paperwork that I had never gone to therapy in my life. I have no where that I belong. I'm not a genius, or a nerd, or a hero, or villain, or just a regular guy. I have seen magic and miracles. And I suppose that means I'm still a gifted child. Because now, I'm doing things that no one else had thought to do. I'm solving problems for my life and for others that will help move humanity forward.

Who knows. What I do know is that if you're telling yourself you're not gifted because you didn't do well in school, then you don't know what gifted is. Speed of thought is the foundation that genius is built on. When I was the GenY coordinator for my local Mensa chapter, I got to see plenty of "smart" folks. You want a quick litmus for who's the smartest person in the room? Tell a commonly funny joke. Whoever laughs first is the smartest one. Tell a few more jokes. See if it holds that they get to the punchline faster than others. That's real intelligence. Memorizing things doesn't mean s**t, if it takes thousands of hours.


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05 Feb 2021, 7:38 pm

HeroOfHyrule wrote:
I wasn't "gifted" in any area besides reading. It actually used to piss off my middle school English teacher since I had the highest scores in the class on reading ability and could write pages of stuff in my creative writing essays, but I had horrible executive functioning. He picked on me because he thought I was lazy, but plot twist I just have ADHD and autism and needed extra help that no one gave me past the third/fourth grade. lol

Did you enjoy reading fiction from an early age?



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05 Feb 2021, 7:44 pm

diagnosedafter50 wrote:
HeroOfHyrule wrote:
I wasn't "gifted" in any area besides reading. It actually used to piss off my middle school English teacher since I had the highest scores in the class on reading ability and could write pages of stuff in my creative writing essays, but I had horrible executive functioning. He picked on me because he thought I was lazy, but plot twist I just have ADHD and autism and needed extra help that no one gave me past the third/fourth grade. lol

Did you enjoy reading fiction from an early age?

I read mostly fiction, and in the 4th to 6th grade I read a lot of books. I stopped after the 6th grade though because anxiety caught up to me and I couldn't focus on reading anymore. I also learned to read from playing video games as a little kid, which is fiction but not books. lol



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05 Feb 2021, 7:57 pm

atataxia wrote:
Yes. It has followed me like a double-edged sword, cutting both ways my whole life. I did the Montessori bit, like some of you, because of my mother. She was a proud woman. She was identical in her mental dilemma to Elizabeth Waltraub Carto. Parents died when she was young, and she made excuses for their sick mentalities because she was their little princess. She received a small fortune in children's books from my grandmother, who had saved every single one the family had ever acquired from the 1940's on. My mom also thought she'd look really fancy with complete sets, plural, of encyclopedias. She found them used at garage sales. Eventually, she had 3 sets, of which one was missing 3 books.

I sat in the basement, after her hopes to show them off became apparently unwanted. No one cared enough to discuss them, notice them, or open them. So, I had read all of them at least once by 3rd grade. I had read all of the children's books my grandma gave me. My 4th grade year, I calculated having read something like 200 books. Children's books, but nonetheless many.

When I was 7, I first told my parents the future. That same year, my dad had a car engine torn down in the garage on several carpets and rugs to be cleaned and rebuilt with his buddies. He was astonished when, while looking at the pieces, I guessed how internal combustion engines worked. I would go on to be in EL, Enhanced Learning gifted classes at school. I did mathlympics, studied the Bible at The Jesus Camp, and fixed neighborhood kids' toys for them. One of the most legendary things I did was help a few kids beat Battletoads when we hadn't even turned 10. (Anyone who knows Battletoads knows what an insane feat that is.)

I went on to high school and got good grades at a college-prep school. There were only AP classes, nothing else for gifted individuals. I could have graduated a year early, but got blocked by the guidance counselor who thought I was ret*d because I had autism. I graduated with honors, meeting every criteria to get the diploma besides a higher than 3.8 GPA. My dad pushed me to be an all-star athlete, straight A student, and to volunteer in the community. I worked with my church and local homeless shelters. I had applied to 17 colleges, received offers of scholarships from 14, with a full ride pending from Oberlin if I gave them confirmation of attendance. The last 3 were a flat acceptance from CWRU, and two rejections from Stanford and U of Michigan. I found out my dad had rewritten my entrance papers, which contained numerous errors and perpetuated his pride and hubris. I received a personalized rejection letter from U of M telling me to go f**k myself, paraphrasing.

I learned later that after 5 attempts at college, I had developed Borderline Personality Disorder from the insanity, invalidation, and neglect my parents showered on me and my sister (we both were diagnosed). I didn't settle for it, and because of all the challenges I had met, I embraced my situation and went to war with myself. I spent years correcting my life from the broken mess it became in my 20's. I beat BPD, and remain one of the only people in history to do so. I still had a few symptoms, despite my life becoming stable. And in 2018, as I was on reddit forums helping support others with BPD, I came across an article that people were being misdiagnosed as BPD when they were only autistic. I took a test from this site, and realized that I am ND.

Now, I sit in a strange and lonely place. I joined Mensa and ran laps around the people in that organization. I scored a 105 on their entrance exam. So, I know on a slow Tuesday when I was hungover that I could still run the game on a standardized test. I later scored a 97 on my ASVAB when I tried to get into the military. But they refused me entry after escorting me all the way to the final processes because I refused to lie on the entrance paperwork that I had never gone to therapy in my life. I have no where that I belong. I'm not a genius, or a nerd, or a hero, or villain, or just a regular guy. I have seen magic and miracles. And I suppose that means I'm still a gifted child. Because now, I'm doing things that no one else had thought to do. I'm solving problems for my life and for others that will help move humanity forward.

Who knows. What I do know is that if you're telling yourself you're not gifted because you didn't do well in school, then you don't know what gifted is. Speed of thought is the foundation that genius is built on. When I was the GenY coordinator for my local Mensa chapter, I got to see plenty of "smart" folks. You want a quick litmus for who's the smartest person in the room? Tell a commonly funny joke. Whoever laughs first is the smartest one. Tell a few more jokes. See if it holds that they get to the punchline faster than others. That's real intelligence. Memorizing things doesn't mean s**t, if it takes thousands of hours.

Hi, Reading all those old children's books gave you a great valuable gift.

When you say you were 7 and you told your parents the future, do you mean that you had a paranormal gift?

Guessing how engines worked sounded like those old children's books helped you become intuitive and psychic. The books seemed to help with problem solving.neighborhood kids' toys for them.
I don't know battletoads

Sorry your guidance counselor judged you as ret*d.

You sound empathetic and spiritually gifted.

Was your dad narcissistic?

The institutions who rejected you lost out.

You don't sound borderline.

Honesty is a sign of spiritual gifts.

I am very interested to know what magic and miracles you have seen, would you mind elaborating please?

Caring for humanity is another spiritual gift.
thank you.



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05 Feb 2021, 8:04 pm

HeroOfHyrule wrote:
diagnosedafter50 wrote:
HeroOfHyrule wrote:
I wasn't "gifted" in any area besides reading. It actually used to piss off my middle school English teacher since I had the highest scores in the class on reading ability and could write pages of stuff in my creative writing essays, but I had horrible executive functioning. He picked on me because he thought I was lazy, but plot twist I just have ADHD and autism and needed extra help that no one gave me past the third/fourth grade. lol

Did you enjoy reading fiction from an early age?

I read mostly fiction, and in the 4th to 6th grade I read a lot of books. I stopped after the 6th grade though because anxiety caught up to me and I couldn't focus on reading anymore. I also learned to read from playing video games as a little kid, which is fiction but not books. lol

Thanks for getting back to me, you sound creative.



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05 Feb 2021, 8:27 pm

r00tb33r wrote:
diagnosedafter50 wrote:
Aspie1 wrote:
According to the NT definition, yes, I was "gifted". My family learned this when I was in kindergarten, when I read at a 3rd-grade level. (I first learned to read when I was 4.) The gift became a curse. :evil: Immediately, I ceased to exist as a person, and started existing solely as a disembodied report card. To start, my parents enrolled me in a private school with an accelerated curriculum, where I read excerpts from "Les Miserables" and did simple algebra in 3rd grade! 8O Then in 6th thru 8th grade, I was in a regular public school but in a gifted program. Perfect grades were expected at all times! Anything less was harshly punished. Even a B got the side-eye, and a C resulted hours of yelling and a loss of TV privileges for 2 weeks. I also had violent fantasies about my teachers, who I blamed for my strained relationship with my parents.

Every time a report card was due, which contained a C or two on occasion, I was making suicide plans, to avoid my parents' anger. I had my first suicide plan when I was 8. By the time I was 12, my plans became elaborate and "multi-pronged"; that is, used multiple methods to minimize the chance of failure. In the end, I graduated high school with a 3.89 GPA, but felt no sense of pride for it whatsoever. Because it came at a very high emotional price, and nearly cost me my life. I used my high school yearbook as a bathroom reader, until I dropped it in a full bathtub one day.

College was OK. But my jobs early in my career were extremely stressful, to the point of me ending up in a hospital. Today, I work in a fairly low-stress, IT job that's far from glamorous, nobody at my work outside my department even knows who I am, I drink almost every day, and my health is far from perfect. So much for "gifted"! :roll:

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

You are not alone.
Maybe one or both of your parents narcissistic. that is to say your successes are their successes.
other narcissistic parents are jealous of their gifted children and cannot bear to see success this was the case with me.

I had a lot of regrets years later as an adult. Childhood is something you have only once, and the time in school. Let every child have a long and happy time growing up, they will have the rest of their lives to be serious.

Missed opportunities we will never have again.

have depression because of missed opportunities and errors I made and now I am 54 and a drug addict.



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06 Feb 2021, 1:52 am

I was smart enough that they sent me from grade 2 straight to grade 4, which made no sense to me, like trying to skip part of a foundation. I started high school at 12, putting me farther behind socially. I never did learn to study or pay attention in class - if it wasn't interesting, I didn't learn much, and as the work got harder my marks got lower until I flunked out and had to leave home, with the general knowledge of a college grad.



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06 Feb 2021, 2:14 am

Dear_one wrote:
I was smart enough that they sent me from grade 2 straight to grade 4, which made no sense to me, like trying to skip part of a foundation. I started high school at 12, putting me farther behind socially. I never did learn to study or pay attention in class - if it wasn't interesting, I didn't learn much, and as the work got harder my marks got lower until I flunked out and had to leave home, with the general knowledge of a college grad.

Being too young in high school is not fun. I knew people in high school that tried hard (and some succeeded) to graduate in 3 years instead of 4. Fools I say, it's the late part of their childhood they gave up and will never have a chance at again! Have fun while you can.

Honestly, later in life I concluded that being a "good boy" didn't pay off either, I should have had more fun and gotten into more trouble then. As a kid you can get away with a lot of things, as an adult you don't have that luxury.


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06 Feb 2021, 5:48 am

Nope. Wasn’t gifted.

Got creative as a teen, though.

I became a Wolfman gifted in Howling :P



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06 Feb 2021, 9:18 am

r00tb33r wrote:
Being too young in high school is not fun. I knew people in high school that tried hard (and some succeeded) to graduate in 3 years instead of 4. Fools I say, it's the late part of their childhood they gave up and will never have a chance at again! Have fun while you can.

Honestly, later in life I concluded that being a "good boy" didn't pay off either, I should have had more fun and gotten into more trouble then. As a kid you can get away with a lot of things, as an adult you don't have that luxury.
This is only partially true. While early childhood fun is mostly the same for everybody---cartoons, silly games, and such---late childhood/adolescence fun is heavily stratified based on social status. While the popular kids have a blast, most non-popular kids just slog along. So missing a part of high school is really not a big deal if you're not "cool" and athletic.

One thing that being a "good boy"---or at least putting up a front of one--- helped me with, is getting good at sneaking around to break the law. Like meeting escorts for sex, or illegally socializing during our Covid scamdemic. I learned how to find the right people online, screen them to make sure they're not cops or public health agents, travel to the meeting site undetected by the police, discreetly enjoy my time there, and get back home equally undetected. All while utilizing VPN's and foreign proxy servers, writing emails such that I have plausible deniability, putting up a front of doing something totally innocuous, and hiding in plain sight on public transit. This goes for both escort sex and illegal parties.

There goes the "giftedness". I'm using my gift/curse for a purpose it totally wasn't meant for.



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06 Feb 2021, 11:11 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Nope. Wasn’t gifted.

Got creative as a teen, though.

I became a Wolfman gifted in Howling :P


Especially since I've been on the internet(1996) I've come across far more people getting A+/A , and thinking they've failed for only getting 80% on a test compared to when I was a pupil/student. A lot of people expect to perform at 'gifted' level .

I was a B to C+ student. I was not the stereotypical gifted student who got a string of straight As, was a musical virtuoso and a dab hand at debating.

To a certain degree I think the term gifted has been 'dumbed down' .